Scenarios

Contents

Introduction

Anno 1404 comes with six scenario maps that act as a bridge between the campaign and continuous mode. The scenarios contain small story vignettes with a few main goals, and completing each scenario unlocks an achievement, new player title, and a medal. There are two easy, two medium, and two hard scenarios.

Anno 1404: Venice adds fifteen new scenarios, each with stronger story elements (introductory and ending cut-scenes, voice acting through the quest stages) than the original six scenarios from the main game. Several of the first scenarios act as tutorials for the new game mechanics of Venice, such as espionage, the city council, and the Bailiwick building. New achievements, player titles, and medals are awarded for completing certain Venice scenarios.

Note: the original six Anno 1404 scenarios can also be played in the Venice expansion, under the "Classic" tab in the scenarios menu. These are identical to the originals, however all the new Venice game mechanics and changes are applied to each. Therefore, the original six scenarios are a bit easier when played in Venice, due chiefly to having a third trading partner and being able to buy cities.

Classic Scenarios

Elector / Electress

Difficulty:EasyQuietly devote yourself to your population in a small world.

Winning conditions

Accumulate 150,000 Gold coins.

Settle 5,000 Inhabitants worldwide.

Settle 2,000 Noblemen worldwide.

Master Builder

Difficulty:(easy)Use large fertile islands on which to build cities that will be the envy of all.

Winning conditions

Build an Imperial cathedral

Settle 10,000 Inhabitants worldwide

Settle 5,000 Nobleman worldwide

Diplomat

Difficulty:MediumDiscover the culture of the Orient and act as an ambassador between the two people.

Winning conditions

Tips

This scenario allows you to focus nearly exclusively on your oriental settlement. 5,000 Envoys can easily fit on a moderately sized island, so it's easiest to only build one main oriental settlement. It's best to try to build the Sultan's mosque as fast as possible, since upon completion the Sultan will arrive at Al Zahir's island and then offer you quests at random intervals. Note that sometimes the Sultan can take a long time to offer quests and there's no way to speed up the process.

Guild Master

Winning conditions

Accumulate 500,000 Gold coins.

Obtain an Alliance with all the other players simultaneously.

Complete 5 Quests for the Emperor.

Tips

Simultaneously blocking the AI's advancement and befriending them: it is possible to monopolize an island without the AI being too angry about it. The trick is to allow them to settle the island, but not give them enough room to actually build anything useful. If you block all coastal areas of an island and stop the AI from settling entirely, they complain about it repeatedly, eventually leading to war. If you allow them to build a warehouse, but nothing more, then they will complain once about your settlement on the island, then settle it themselves, and be happy with their own 'settlement'. I recommend doing this for herbs: it is the rarest of the northern patrician-level resources, and will stop the AI from advancing to Nobleman level. Depending on the map, you might also consider monopolizing a different commodity. Cornering the Indigo market, for example, will prevent the AI making Carpets or Books.

You do not need to maintain your alliances with the AI once you have obtained them. Once the victory condition is fulfilled, it cannot be lost. After you have lured them all into alliances, you are free to betray and exterminate them, if you want to. Note that you can build within the AI's military radius when you are allied with them.

If you are in a game with Marie d'Artois and Sir Gavin Langton as AI's, postpone your alliance with Sir Gavin until you are allied with Marie. Sir Gavin tends to break the alliance and every time you re-ally with him, you lose up to 8 reputation points with Marie.

Tips

First get rid of all your opponents, and then start worrying about any other assignments.

As such, you're basically re-doing General, but now with Kardinal Lucius present. See Scenario: General for tips on how to do this. The example map listed there is also one of the possible maps for Imperator. You may have to resort to warfare sooner than in General though, as it is very hard to stay at peace with Lucius. Otherwise there is little difference with the opponents you've faced in General.

Without items granting additional ascension rights, you're going to need 857 occidental and 572 oriental houses to reach 10,000 noblemen/envoys[1]. Each bonus item will save you at least 50 houses, so keep your eyes open for them at Northburgh/Al Zahir after constructing the monuments!

The 250 noblemen houses you'll need all fit within the influence range of a single imperial cathedral. That means you can demolish those debtor's prisons.

Venice Scenarios

The addon Venice includes fifteen new scenarios.

I: Vendetta

Difficulty:EasyFocus: Diplomacy Objective: Drop the enemy's population morale to zero.

Place a Base of Operations within your city's limits.

Send a spy to various safe houses and commit acts of espionage until morale reaches zero.

Tips

You must use the Venetian Base of Operations to send a spy into the enemy island, where he can commit acts of Espionage. Espionage reduces the morale of the enemy population and lowers your reputation with whomever you commit the acts against. When your enemy's population reaches zero morale, the scenario is won. If your reputation drops too low, the enemy will declare war on you, and you will lose the scenario.

Remember to use the Relationships screen (F7) to occasionally check your reputation with the enemy, and pay tribute to him to raise reputation if necessary.

II: Ray of hope

Difficulty:EasyFocus: Adventure

Objectives

Help Willem by finding some clues as to his daughter's whereabouts.

The hope of finding his daughter has brought new life to the otherwise melancholic Willem. However, with age taking its toll, he is glad that you have agreed to his request to help him with the investigations. Willem is convinced that together you will be able to track down the long lost Beatrice.

Tips

You have a mercenaries' castle on your settlement that you can make use for taking over Guy's island. All you need is to buy some weapons from the NPCs.

III: The key to power

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Diplomacy

Achievement: There's an achievement for purchasing the key to the city on all three of Leif's islands. This means you must purchase at least three council seats on each of his three islands in order to buy the keys on each. Make sure you buy the keys to the two secondary islands before his main island since acquiring the main island key ends the scenario!

Tips

You must buy three council seats from your opponent's main island in order to buy the key to the city, thus winning the scenario. In order to buy council seats in another city, you must have the Venetian attainment "Hostile Takeover," which is not available until the Patrician level. Grow your city until Patricians move in.

Once you reach the Patrician level, buy Hostile Takeover from the attainments menu (F10) and begin buying your opponent's council seats without starting a war. There are continual, optional side quests from the neutral powers that generate large amounts of money to aid in buying the seats and key, which can be very expensive.

Furthermore, if you use the arson sabotage and burn down a few houses the cost of the key to the city will be reduced.

Also, if you're only short a few gold to buy the key, you can increase your tax rates to orange or red to bring in lots of money since it doesn't matter if your people get mad since you're about to win.

IV: Reign of the elements

Difficulty:EasyFocus: Adventure

Tips

You must recover three artifacts on three islands using a mining unit (called "Treasure hunters" by the game). However, every time you settle an island with an artifact, Witches will cause a disaster on the island. You must deliver goods to friendly powers to help them stop the disasters in order to retrieve the artifacts.

This scenario is very easy, with the hardest part being the final quest which requires providing 10t clay and 10t herbs. To prepare for this, be sure to expand your occidental city to 550 patricians and your oriental city to 440 nomads and reach "The Sheik's Ally" diplomatic rank.

V: Close to the wind

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Adventure

Tips

1040 envoys plus all required production buildings crammed onto the small oriental island.

1) This scenarios is all about winning boat races. You will need an oriental trading ship to win the final race, so you may as well work on getting one of those first, and only then do all the races. This requires 1,040 envoys, which requires 42 full houses. However, it's much easier to ascend roughly 65 houses, which each have 16/25 residents, because envoys will not move into newly ascended envoy housing unless you provide them more goods like coffee.

Fitting 1,040 envoys plus all the required production on the small island provided requires efficient use of space. Remember that the noria exploit can be used to provide full yield farms without all fields.

For ship speed, get 2x +10% speed "Sails" items from the beggar island, and your ship is capable of winning the final race. Be warned that on the final race you will be attacked by enemy ships between waypoint 3 and 5.

2) Building an oriental trading ship is not the only solution. You can win the first 3 races with your flag ship (you will need the help of some sockets). When you get to the final race you need to request auxiliary fleet from Al Zahir in exchange for some honour - but it does not matter because after you win the final race, you win.

3) There is a third solution, probably easier still! - Take advantage of the large island which is alongside the course of this race. Build a warehouse at one end and a harbour master's office at the other. Use one ship to drop off the treasure at one end, and another ship to pick up the treasure from the other end and take it to the finish. Credit for this solution to vulcanjedi on the Ubi forums "Close to the Wind -- 4th Race"

VI: The di Mercante case

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Adventure, Trade, Logistics

Tips

There is an achievement available called "Master detective" which requires you to complete all five sidequests during this scenario. This achievement was originally glitched and unable to be obtained, but the Venice patch 2.1 fixed it so it is attainable.

Three of the sidequests will start as you play the mission, but the "Groundless" quest only starts if you sail just a bit southwest of Al Zahir's island and see the grounded ship. The next sidequest "Unknown Cargo" will immediately begin after completing the prior.

VII: Archipelago

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Development, Economy

Tips

You will need at least 92 occidental houses to get noblemen. You can win by using about 2/3 of your main island for houses. The other 1/3 can be used for Cider farms, Lumberjacks huts, Forest glassworks, ect.

You will need at least 20 oriental houses in order to produce Indigo, which is necessary for Books.

Hemp can be grown on the small island east of your main island. Bread, beer, wood, tools, and stone can be obtained from the island to the far west of your main island. Pigs can be placed on the small oriental island to the southeast of your main island and then transported north to the only occidental island that has a river.

VIII: A rotten bet

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Development, Economy

Description

This scenario requires fulfilling the following conditions and maintaining them for 60 seconds.

Have at least 1000 beggars in your settlement

Your balance in positive

Your population is at least "Happy"

The beggar mechanics are slightly different than normal in this scenario.

Many more beggars than normal arrive.

Beggars refuse to enter hospices. This will be a serious drain on your capital: roughly 1500 gold per minute for 1000 beggars.

Note: There is an achievement for asking tribute from Northburgh, Al Zahir, or Garibaldi. It's a good idea to ask for tribute repeatedly anyway.

Tips

Refused or evicted beggars will not return. The only way to get more beggars is to expand your settlement further.

Maintaining a positive balance: The number of beggar in your settlement is proportionate to the number of citizens (and up) you have. This means that you can have as many peasants and nomads/envoys as you like without being flooded with beggars. Create a large peasant city and slowly upgrade them to citizens to grow your beggar population without risk of going bankrupt.

You only have to meet the requirements for 60 seconds. If you have problems maintaining a positive balance, but meet the other requirements, stockpile enough goods to keep your population "Happy", then start deleting your production buildings. This will quickly bring your balance to positive, thus allowing your to meet the objectives for 60 seconds.

Don't forget to set your oriental population to be happy in order to get the 60 second countdown started.

IX: Scourge of the seven seas

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Adventure, Military

Story

In this scenario you will start at the dead center of the map with a single corsair ship with 6 attack and the inherent auto repair ability. To increase your fleet size and rank with the corsairs you will have to pillage and plunder. With the money from the loot you gather from the ships and warehouses (mainly ships), you can buy corsair ships with 8 attack, these ships are brilliantly fast and have their auto repair. But the more you plunder the more large war ships start wrecking your party. These are quite hard beat and can destroy several of your corsair ships.

Eventually you will be so admired by Hassan he will send you to destroy a fleet of 4 large warships and 1 large trading ship. This trading ship holds an item called "loot" which finishes he scenario when given to Hassan.

You can buy a large fleet but another possibility is to just buy the key of power from Hassan. (Nobleman item) Sail into the ships and sink them. After that just sink that trading ship and you've won the scenario.

Achievements

There are three achievements possible:

Defeat 15 Navy (red) ships

Acquire 80,000 total bounty (will be done naturally as you progress through the level usually)

Achieve both the above achievements for the final one.

Tips

Most important tip would be, keep clicking the refresh button as often as you can to make sure you have boarding teams to board large war ships. The first one I took was with the starter ship and one bought ship, simply dragged out the battle until one of my ships was almost destroyed then I used the other to board and it succeeded.

Building on what the above tip said, make sure you take control of quest enemy ships. These ships are mainly named "Enemy Small Warship" or something similar with either 500 or 800 health. These ships are slow as dirt, have one item slot and cargo hold and they do either 6 or 10 damage pending on their size. Despite being limited, they have no upkeep cost and will not be attacked by the emperor's navy, an AI's navy or any military buildings. This is most likely a glitch, but these quest ships can be left in front of a harbor to build up your bounty and they will never be destroyed. Also good for finishing off the final quest as they once again will not be attacked.

The bought ships are perfect for taking out small ships and getting away with the booty and doing so continuously, so keep buying them.

Basic fighting skills like focusing all fire power on a single ship generally makes for a won battle.

Blocking the main port of a player gives quite a lot of loot at once, just put one or two large war ships in front of it beyond the range of the towers and let the corsair ships pick up everything. Be sure to get away before an overwhelming force of large war ships arrives though.

Enemy ship AI is rather stupid. They will typically focus on one of your ships and ignore the rest, allowing you to move the focused ship just out of range of the enemy while the rest of your ships continues shooting without counterattack. This is especially true in the final battle: those warship do not move at all, allowing you to pick them off one at a time.

To get money without increasing your rank among the corsairs, board large trade-ships, repair them, and fill with valuable cargo. Then sell ship at a much higher price. The cargo will be dropped in front of the corsair trade building and can be reused for next ship.

X: Noblesse oblige

Difficulty:MediumFocus: Development, Trade, Logistics

Objectives

Your task is to reach noblemen, using oriental islands only. The scenario is won as soon as you obtain your first nobleman.

Note that although the quest description states that you are to build a Metropolis, you do not need to reach "Metropolis" city status (3500 noblemen/5240 envoys). A status of "City" (1190 patricians) is enough produce the single nobleman that is required.

Tips

This is actually a quite tricky scenario. It requires you to play quite differently because there aren't the proper fertiilities to grow all the goods you need. The key to winning is to set up many passive purchase orders on all your islands and to also use customs items to boost your goods.

You cannot produce cider, linen garments, bread, or beer yourself, so you'll have to buy those through passive trade.

You can optionally choose to not buy linen garments but buy hemp instead and produce the garments yourself. This is cheaper but Northburgh is the only one who sells Hemp and he prefers to not sell much, so you may want to buy both.

You can produce books and leather jerkins entirely without buying goods. But so few books are needed to reach noblemen that you don't even need to setup books production. You can just buy books.

You can set up carpet production to sell for money if you're low on funds.

Tips

Winning this scenario is pretty easy, but the real challenge is completing the scenario with at least 30 minutes to spare to get the achievement 'I work best under pressure'.

This scenario is about fast and cost-effective building. There is plenty of space, so don’t bother about efficient building. Don’t use the space around the little platforms in your city. The administrator will stand there for inspection and you have to build the assignments within his influence area (also the nomad houses and mosque of the third inspection!).

Use as much from the introduction time as possible since you don’t get a reward for unused time. Time left from the assignments creates honour and bonus time, so always complete each stage as fast as possible!!

Also request quests from the mentors to get honour faster. You really only need honour for buying enough diplomatic ranks to reach "Sheik's Ally". Once that happens, use all additional honour to ask for loans from all the mentors.

Walkthrough

Start by immediately setting up three complete tools production chains on your main island. Connect Brother Hilarious and buy extra goods from him in the beginning. Also set up all four stonemason huts and about 10 lumberjacks.

Build a harbour masters office in the south-west for more efficient handling of the oriental trade routes. Edit the current spice route to go to your new harbour.

Do not colonize another occidental island (no need) but do colonize one of the two large oriental islands in the south or southwest.

One trick is to immediately demolish the oriental houses on 'Aschgabad' and change the trading route to bring both spices and dates to your main island. Now build a new oriental city right by your occidental city (where the south-east little platform is below your main city layout. Now build goat farms on your occidental island. Build an extra noria or two on 'Aschgabad' and build 2 more spice farms and 2 more dates farms.

Get enough nomads to unlock the quartz mines, mosaic quarries, and mosque (440 nomads). Now build two quartz mines on either large oriental island and ship it back. Get glass production up and running on your main island ASAP since you need a LOT for the manorial palace.

You'll probably run out of money before the final stage where you have to build the very costly manorial palace parts. Produce extra linen garments, bread, tools, and ropes for a nice cash boost. Actively sell and passively sell as many surplus goods as possible. Generate more money out of passive sales by maximizing the trading fleets in the attainments menu.

If you're really efficient, you can beat this level with close to an hour left. Note that the "I work best under pressure" achievement for completing the scenario with 30 minutes or more remaining on the clock was supposedly fixed to work in version 2.1, but sometimes you still don't get the achievement.

Note: One devious strategy is to demolish each manorial segment after you build it. For instance, once all four corners are built, demolish all them. This saves the maintenance, although this method is a bit of an exploit.

XII: Istar's labyrinth

Difficulty:HardFocus: Adventure

Objectives

Find 16 treasures hidden in the labyrinth.

Tips

[Spoiler Warning!] Here's a map of the labyrinth including locations of all items, goods, and treasures.

Notice in the storm on the right side, you can find a boarding crew. With this item you can take over one of the small war ships.

XIII: Elysium

Difficulty:HardFocus: Development, Economy

Objectives

Attain 1404 noblemen. Tax income is disabled.

Tips

With tax income disabled, you will have to make your money from trade. Active trade and passive trade are both viable options for gathering enough money to complete this scenario.

Default trade prices for all goods are three times what they normally are. Example: the normal base trade price of fish is 9. In this scenario, the active (= base) trade price of fish is 27. Passive trade still gets a 2.5x multiplier: selling fish passively yields 67 per ton.

In addition, active trade prices vary highly depending on who you sell to. Be sure to check who offers the most before deciding who to sell to.

Some goods are actually worth more in active trade with the highest bidder than it is in passive trade!

Northburgh and Al Zahir will pay at least the improved base price (3x normal) for all goods. Sometimes a little more.

Prices at Leif and Hildegard vary depending on what they need. They offer 1 for goods they do not need, and pay a premium for goods they do need. Sometimes they pay even more than the passive sale price (over 3x2.5=7.5 normal value)!

XIV: Pact with a bard

Difficulty:HardFocus: Development, Military

Objectives

The player starts with neutral reputation with Zanchi and an alliance with Leif. Ingratiation and tributes to Zanchi are disabled. Zanchi will make regular demands for tribute. Failing to pay these results in war.

Note: There is an achievement for beating this scenario in only 1 in-game hour. This means you can and should use fast-forward as much as possible to make this deadline.

Tips

The easiest method to victory is to only recruit Trebuchets through the Robber Baron's Castle. You simply wait about 20 minutes and accumulate about 10 of these units. While waiting, expand production to meet your people's needs, such as more Cider, Linen Garments, and Bread. Then declare war, and land right at the upper part of the Baroness's island. Then destroy the main gate with all your Trebuchets. Move directly on to destroying the Manorial Palace. Keep building more Trebuchets. You'll probably have to do a couple waves of attack.

Meanwhile, have your 4 starting ships go stay by her Warehouse and keep destroying all her ships. You shouldn't ever need to build any more Ships. The Baroness is very stupid and victory can be had if you trick her into sailing her troops into the water so you can kill them. If she was smart, this mission would become nearly impossible.

*or*

You can also try for a slower, more economic route to victory. At the start you can expand settling Leif's main island and claim the river sites. Those will come in very handy when producing leather jerkins and books. Ingratiate him and pay a bit of tribute to compensate for the lost reputation.

It is possible to buy out Zanchi's main island. This will be very expensive. When you buy the key to the city, you become owner of the Manorial Palace and can simply demolish it to achieve victory.

XV: Barren lands

Difficulty:HardFocus: Development, Trade, Logistics

Objectives

Build a city with 4,000 noblemen in a world with minimal fertility.

Rid the world of the corsairs. Each island cleared gives 400 honour and 5000 gold coins. Upon completion of this quest (the keep and the three Watchtowers around it can be left intact despite the Quest's "63" Tower count which should be "60"), the player receives The last contingent.

The last contingent. Destroy a fleet of 13 corsair ships. Completion enables trade (both passive and active) with Hassan ben Sahid. The corsairs are the only source of seeds on this map.

Tips

It's best to play this map in two distinct phases: fighting the corsairs & building the cathedral.

You can get tools by trading with Lord Richard Northburgh or by buying them from a monastery located on the island you start on.

There is an excavation site on the island; I highly recommend providing the required equipment for the excavation as it will create items. Most of the items will be useless but can later be traded for a large sum of honour from Lord Richard Northburgh.

With enough honour buy 2 small war ships and explore the map. Find the Grand Vizier Al Zahir so you are able to trade honour for large oriental warships.

Destroy the 60 Harbour Towers located around the coasts of islands. You do NOT need to destroy the Keep and three Watchtowers on the upper-right island, despite the game counting the Watchtowers in its total 63 towers. You just need to destroy the armies.

You can destroy the corsair's armies with your ships. Build a warehouse on one of their islands and any armies on it will move in to destroy it, putting them in range of your ship's cannons.

Now complete the fraternization quest, which requires destroying the Corsair fleet.

The 13 ships of The last contingent can be taken out with a single harbour defence tower. See screenshot for demonstration. Only the center ship fights back, the rest completely ignores the tower. They all eventually die without putting up much of a fight. This method exploits the bad AI, so you may wish to use the old fashioned method of attacking with Ships, retreating to heal, and repeating until you win. Although, you will lose many Ships trying to attack them.

Taking out 13 corsair ships with one tower

Building the cathedral:

Buy seeds from Hassan. Grow Cider and Hemp on islands.

You cannot buy any seeds from the corsairs until you have completed the missions.

The entire game you will only be able to plant cider, hemp and date seeds so all other resources will have to be traded for.

Settle all islands and put in purchase orders for Bread, Beer, and other goods. Then set up trade routes to bring these goods to your main island.

Settle the volcanic island and buy a geologist, who will allow you to make any number of the types of mines he provides. For example, you can build five salt mines with just one brine geologist.

Disallow Goods for your people that you cannot produce yourself. Only briefly allow all goods to push for further city levels. Don't worry about upsetting your population.